When Compassion Backfires
Dec 8, 2008 Unordered Miscellany
It finally is clear to me: sometimes you can’t help morons.
My parents taught me be treat everyone like family. To show compassion. Be hospitable. And always be willing to provide service. They are good folks and I’m glad they instilled some solid foundation in me.
But sometimes people just can’t accept your help.
A week ago we were driving to the gym as a family when we saw a car stalled in the middle of an intersection its lights off. This isn’t a good situation no matter where the intersection, but in Delray Beach, FL where the average driver’s eyesight is 20/200 it is a nightmare. A lady in her 40′s got out and started pushing, while another lady in her 30′s steered.
My wife looked at me and said “You want to help don’t you?”. I told her to pull to the side while I help get them out of traffic. That was my goal, to get them out of traffic and out of harms way.
Without saying anything I run up to the lady and start pushing the car. She’s too busy screaming and cussing at the driver to even realize I’m there. And the car doesn’t move. I’ve been a poor college student and pushed my share of cars over the years. I know when a car is in neutral and when its not. The car was not in neutral.
“Put it in neautral” I yell. The lady next to me looks over with a look of surprise like “where did you come from!”. Then she yells to the driver “Put it in neutral!” along with some choice words I won’t repeat here. The driver responds “it is in neutral!”, to which she replies “No it’s not, the guy says put it in neutral!” The driver looks in her rear view mirror, looks me in the eye as I’m having a hernia trying to push a car in gear and says “What guy?”, to which the other lady says “the guy trying to push our car”. They proceed to argue for what I swear is eternity about whether or not the car is in neutral and whether or not I was actually helping. Are you serious? Do you have to have your drama right now while everyone’s lives are at risk in the middle of an intersection? We start pushing again and the lady behind says “just pop the clutch already!”. WHAT?! We aren’t going 2 miles per hour and you want to pop the thing?
The light cycles and I realize we aren’t going anywhere. I step in front of traffic and guide it around the parked car. As I’m doing so, and as senior citizen drivers of Delray are honking at me because I’m in the road (duh!), I yell out a few directions of what we’re going to do. I tell them not to worry about popping the car but just get it out of traffic. The light cycles again and we put the plan to work. We get the car to the side of the road, so far so good. Goal accomplished!
Or so I thought.
The lady who was helping me push says “Can you just help me pop it? We did it earlier today.” I looked ahead, saw that I had about 150 feet of runway before the road started to incline, and agreed to help a little more. The older lady said she did it earlier with about 5 boys pushing her. I knew it was near impossible, but since I’m a nice guy I said we could give it a shot.
I pushed the car not more than 10 feet and she tries popping the bloody thing already! I told her to wait until I give the ok before she tries to pop it again. So I start from a cold stop again and get it up to maybe 10 mph with pure Murphy hustle. “POP IT!” I yell. I see the brake lights come on and a couple jolts as she lets go of the clutch. You’ve got to be kidding me! Do you know how to pop a clutch or not.
I tell the lady that that was as far as I could help. Then my wife pulls up in our Ford Explorer to pick me up. That’s when the lady says: “Can you give me a push?” What? Umm… I really don’t want to. I look in the back for jumper cables, tow rope, anything that could get us out of the worse possible scenerio. I got nothing. I tell them I’m sorry, but I can’t help.
“But if you could just push us until we get it started. We did it yesterday.” She begged. I looked at my wife who gave me a “don’t look at me” type of look. I looked at the back of their bumper, the front of mine, and saw they’d match up. Against my better judgement, I decided we’d give it a try. I line everything up. I then tell the driver to pop it as soon as we reach the sign ahead, and that I would be braking at that point so she didn’t ruin my car. She agreed and off we went. 5, 10, 15 mp, so far so good. And then she tries to pop the clutch, 30 feet early! I feel a large “thump” against my bumper and slam on my brakes. Sure enough, I slammed into the back of their car. Luckily there was no detectable damage because our speeds were so slow. But I was still pretty pissed.
She gets out of her car. Looks at her bumper, then says she almost had it started if I could giver her one more try. I shook my head but somehow said ended up agreeing to another shot. I told her to not touch the clutch until I honked my horn (and you better believe my brakes would be on before that). We started off again, 10, 20, 30 mph. We hit 35, I hit the brake and horn at same time. I see her car shoot forward like a slingshot, then jolt, and jolt again. I didn’t see any brake lights so she did it right. But the pop-start didn’t happen. And if that didn’t do it, nothing was going to.
I get out of the car, frustrated, and say I’m sorry but that’s about all I can do. I tell her to have the battery and the alternator checked. We push the car to the side of the road again. And since I didn’t have a cell phone on me I told them to try the gas station across the street.
There were many details that I left out for brevity (to which I think I failed already), but basically concluded that the two people I was working with were morons. I can’t say I’m any better because I let them persuade me to help even though it was against my better judgement. But to hear the two ladies bitch and whine and blame each other for the car problems the whole time I’m trying to help was a clear indicator to me: these two weren’t ready to receive help! I’m glad I got them out of harms way and off to the side of the road, but I should have stopped there. Instead, I ended up being a nice guy and going beyond my capacity to help.
And I left with a feeling of frustration instead of the good feeling one usually gets when you help someone in need.
That’s it, I’m going to be an asshole from now on.
Tags: asshole, car problems, compassion, nice guy, pop-start, service